Mark Smeets

(25 July 1942 - 8 September 1999, The Netherlands)

Although Mark Smeets wasn't really a comic artist, he is surely part of the world of comics. He mostly published loose drawings and short stories. But he did work on various Dutch comic magazines, such as Tante Leny Presenteert and Modern Papier. He also published some of his drawings in 'Cocktail Comix'. Mark Smeets gained fame in France when an issue of Tante Leny Presenteert (issue 15) was entirely devoted to his work, and was translated into French (A/4 comix). In the 1990s he launched the smallpress magazine Venlo International, together with his brother Luuk.

According to Chris Ware, "Mark Smeets uses comics to make visible the 'invisible' sedimentary layers of accumulated human activity. I guess that the humor or interest of his strips comes from the potentially wild juxtapositions which might result from such a cosmological 'stripview'. Regardless, I find his stuff completely fascinating."